A fiery startup that has been working on vegan eggs for 4 years finally debuts them — here’s how they taste

For the past four years, the vegan-food startup Hampton Creek had yet to crack the eggless egg.

But on Thursday, the company announced it was rolling out its first scrambled “egg” product, Just Scramble, in several restaurants in San Francisco starting with Flore, a café in the city’s Castro district. It plans to expand to other cities and companies next year.

The company’s mission is to transform the way we eat by swapping the animal products in food for vegetable-based alternatives. It made a name for itself in 2013 with its eggless Just Mayo.

Hampton Creek has long promised a standalone eggless egg product. But the company became mired in controversy after allegations that it had bought its own product to artificially inflate sales. Four years later, the company still wasn’t selling a vegan alternative to eggs.

The company continued to churn out products, and consumers ate them up. Its line includes plant-based foods like cookie dough and dressings, which are sold in stores including Walmart and Whole Foods. Hampton Creek products are also served in thousands of schools as well as in stadiums and corporate cafeterias. In June, the company announced that it was going to work on lab-grown meat.

Hampton Creek has raised more than $US220 million since starting six years ago, and it is now valued at $US1.1 billion. On Friday, the company announced that two firms that invest in social and environmental sustainability, Radicle Impact and Blue Horizon, would invest in the company. Read more